Managers at The Myanmar Times have fired 13 journalists, including the editor-in-chief, from the newspaper’s Burmese language daily edition without any prior warning.

Staff were told about the layoffs at an “emergency meeting” midday Thursday and asked not to come into the office the following day, said Than Naing, one of the editors who was fired. 

“They should have notified us at least one month in advance,” he told Myanmar Now. 

There were 41 people on the editorial team before the sackings. The edition’s chief correspondent, Zeyar Lin, was also among those laid off. 

Two of the fired employees confirmed they were compensated with two and a half months’ salary in lieu of prior notice, which is in line with labour laws. 

Soe Myint, who was an executive editor at the paper until yesterday, said he felt the decision was made by the owner, Thein Tun, in the newspaper’s best interest.

“He made these changes because our current performance might not be satisfying for him,” said Soe Myint. 

Ei Ei Toe Lwin, the paper’s chief of staff, said the move was aimed at improving the quality of the paper.

“The Myanmar Times daily is undergoing a reorganisation exercise with the aim of improving the quality of the paper,” she told Myanmar Now. 

There was still more “restructuring” underway, she added, but refused to comment further on the matter. 

Founded in 2000 by Myanmar Consolidated Media, the outlet operates daily and weekly editions in both Burmese and English.

In 2017 the company launched the daily Burmese language edition to supplement the weekly. The layoffs at the daily are the first in the three years since it was launched. 

The company is now planning to merge the newsrooms of its daily and weekly editions in both languages in the coming year, people familiar with the newsroom said. 

Frontier Myanmar reported in 2017 that nearly two dozen foreign editorial staff resigned or were sacked from the paper amidst a row over the firing of a journalist whose reporting on the Rohingya angered the government.  

Myanmar Consolidated Media was co-founded by Ross Dunkley, an Australian publisher, and Sonny Swe, whose father Thein Swe was at the time a senior military intelligence officer.

Thein Swe was jailed on several counts of treason during a purge of military intelligence in 2004, while Sonny Swe was sentenced to 14 years for breaching censorship laws.

After being freed in an amnesty in 2013, Sonny Swe went on to found the Frontier Myanmar news magazine in 2015.   

Dunkley is now himself serving a hefty prison sentence - 13 years - after police found large amounts of drugs at his home during a raid last year. 

The Myanmar Times’ has had several different co-owners since Sonny Swe’s arrest. Tin Tun Oo of Swesone Media joined in 2004 and was replaced in 2015 by Thein Tun, the founder of the Tun Foundation Bank.

Dunkley sold his shares the same year to Thein Tun, who is known popularly as “Pepsi Thein Tun” for bringing the soft drink to Myanmar.